Editorial: Religious refusal bill is bad for patient rights

They call it the "religious liberty and conscience protection act," but the bill that Republicans advanced in the state Senate is in fact nothing more than another right-wing power play at the expense of the health and well-being of citizens. It should be stopped.

The Committee on Health Policy in March approved a bill that would allow health care providers to refuse to provide services that conflict with their personal beliefs. The Senate passed the same bill in December, but it never received a vote in the House.

Republican backers say the bill strikes the appropriate balance between protecting patient care and the religious rights of health care workers. Indeed the bill includes provisions that prohibit denial of care in life-threatening situations and a requirement that patients are counseled on all medical options.

That's little comfort to us, knowing the complexity of health care delivery decisions, the context in which those decision are made and the degree to which personal bias and environmental factors can affect those decisions. This bill falls well short of the rights of patients while extending "conscientious objector" rights to virtually any individual or business in the health care delivery system.

Religious refusal laws are not new - many states, including Michigan, adopted such laws after the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion in 1973, allowing doctors to opt out of performing abortions on moral grounds. The mandated coverage for contraception included in the Affordable Care Act, however, has fueled a legislative movement to expand those laws, even as the Obama administration has proposed alternatives that would exempt religious nonprofits from the requirement.

Under a policy the administration proposed in February, self-insured plans could opt out of contraceptive coverage, transferring responsibility for coverage to a third-party administrator who would then be responsible for arranging "separate individual health insurance policies for contraceptive coverage. That's unlikely, however, to satisfy opponents of the new law.

The GOP-led state Legislature's antipathy for the Affordable Care Act, and its crusade to deny women access to reproductive health care, is not new, either. This bill, of course, takes direct aim at contraception. It would allow pharmacists to opt out of providing contraceptives, unconscionable in a state where access to prenatal care and family planning counseling is already limited.

The breadth of this legislation, however, is breathtaking. It would allow any health care provider or insurance company to refuse to provide treatment or payment as a matter of personal conscience. Its definition of conscience is even more elastic, including" any philosophy or belief system" the individual can reference to assert those convictions.

The bill could have implications for treating patients and families making end-of-life decisions, or for patients with disabilities.

The bill provides no meaningful requirements of notification to patients that a service is unavailable, and it provides institutions, physicians, nurses and other providers with protections from liability, penalties, dismissal or other consequences for refusing to provide a service.

About the only person who is not protected is the patient, particularly those in Michigan's abundant rural areas where choices for providers are already so limited.

There are many examples where the Roman Catholic Church's "Ethical and Religious Directives" have jeopardized the lives of women in need of care not available at a Catholic-owned institution. This bill would only jeopardize more lives while imposing a religious doctrine on all of us.

Conscientious objection in health care cannot be framed solely as an issue of individual rights or beliefs because it always affects someone elses health or access to care. Were this bill to become law it could have devastating consequences for Michigan citizens.

The Republicans who introduced Senate Bill 136, including our own Sen. Mike Nofs, should reconsider. This is simply bad policy.

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Editorial: Religious refusal bill is bad for patient rights

They call it the 'religious liberty and conscience protection act,' but the bill that Republicans advanced in the state Senate is in fact nothing more than another right-wing power play at the